Girls’ Nights Out 4 – Lilibat

(Akane's PoV)

—

Our last stop was my idea, and probably my greatest achievement of the evening.

At the end of a side street, squeezed between a ramen counter and a closed pharmacy, stood a tiny but very super amazing shop called Bat Cave Goods.

The window displayed an enormous plush bat wearing a nightcap, asleep on a mountain of cereal boxes.

Above the entrance was a beautiful mascot with huge round glasses, grinning over a bowl of cereal.

Ah. My beloved Lilibat. Of course it was Lilibat.

Sora stopped so suddenly that Hoshiko nearly walked into her.

"Oh, no..." She covered her mouth.

I looked at her. "What's wrong, Sora?"

She pointed at the sign without looking at me. "That's Lilibat."

I blinked, and Hoshiko did too.

"You know Lilibat?" I asked.

Sora looked at me, and then leaned closer.

"I have eaten Lilibat. Since I was a kid, I guess."

I stared at her.

She then glanced around as though she were about to confess to a crime.

"I still do today, but in secret. Behind a bookcase. My mother says the cereal is too sweet and that it will make me fat."

I immediately grabbed her wrist. "Sora."

"Y-yes?"

"We're going inside." I grinned.

"Akane, wait..."

Too late.

I dragged her through the door, and Hoshiko followed us like a toddler walking into Disneyland for the first time.

Once inside, we realized how truly amazing the place was.

The shop was tiny, glittering and absolutely packed.

Lilibats and other little creatures' plushies lined the shelves in every imaginable size. Stickers covered entire panels. Enamel pins hung from hooks beside towers of cereal boxes.

And against the back wall... Oh, God.

An entire row of capsule machines, each one filled with tiny Lilibat figures and keychains, literally screaming 'GIVE ME YOUR MONEY!'

Lilibat wearing a chef's hat, Lilibat in a top hat, Lilibat with a scarf... and even one riding a skateboard.

Hoshiko kept glancing around, literally saying, "Oh God. I'm already thinking about thousands of different tattoos." She then looked at me. "BABY WOLF, YOU'LL BE MY VICTIM!"

"Oh. Sure. If you'll do it for free." I smiled.

"OF COURSE! ONLY FOR YOU!" She exclaimed. 

Meanwhile, Sora approached the machines with her mouth slightly open.

"Oh..." She pressed her fingers against the glass. "Oh, look at this one..." She then moved to the next machine. "This one has glasses! Oh! It's so cute...! I love it!!"

I grinned, moving my gaze to her and the machines.

'She's a marshmallow. Adorable.' I thought.

Then Hoshiko joined us, and, to my surprise, she knew practically everything about them.

"Ohhhh, the skateboard one!" She crouched beside Sora. "That one's rare, you know?"

"Really?"

"One in twenty, apparently. Don't waste all your coins trying to get the scarf. That one's everywhere." Hoshiko said, her voice 'sharpening'.

Sora nodded very seriously. "Understood... but I want to try..."

Apparently, we were conducting important research now.

"Don't... because once you start spinning, it will be impossible to stop—" I tried to explain, but before I realized, the beautiful idol fed some coins into the machine and turned the handle.

Even Hoshiko was stunned. She looked at me with a gaze that literally said: "It's over."

Then, after an instant, the capsule dropped, and Sora caught it in both hands and carefully opened it.

Then stared at the little figure inside with the same attention she gives student council things.

It looked like the world had stopped spinning. 

Then, she spoke, her voice dropping to a whisper.

"...It's the skateboard," Sora said.

Hoshiko leaned closer.

"WHAT THE FUCK?!" Hoshiko and I exclaimed in unison.

Sora held it up. "Yes, look! It's the skateboard!" She even smiled.

"IT'S THE MOTHERFUCKING SKATEBOARD!" Hoshiko shrieked so loudly that the shopkeeper looked up from behind the counter.

The woman had probably considered intervening, but then apparently decided she'd rather live. 

With a beautiful smile, Sora clutched the little bat to her chest and, for a second, she looked like a child who'd just won the grand prize at a festival.

Then she noticed me watching, and her back straightened immediately.

"I... I'm sorry. I got a little excited." She blushed, looking away.

I rolled my eyes. "Don't apologize, you Lucky Angel. That's why we're here."

She smiled sheepishly.

By the time we finished, she'd collected a small army of bats.

One on a skateboard, one wearing a chef's hat, one in a nightcap, and a couple with tiny red scarves. Everyone was a rare piece, while Hoshiko and I only got the 'common' ones. 

But the fox was still happy, and her happiness was so contagious that I somehow became 'happy' too. She even told Sora that her first tattoo would be free.

I looked at them, and I smiled. 'Maybe... having people with you is not so bad, after all...'

In the end, Sora spent the rest of her money on the capsule machines, with Hoshiko practically breathing down her neck.

"Not that one! The one on the left. No, your other left!"

The chef's hat took three tries. The nightcap took five, and Hoshiko nearly deafened us when it finally dropped. She grabbed it before Sora could even reach into the tray, clipped it to her keys, and wouldn't tell us why she wanted it so badly.

As for the bat with the red scarf, Hoshiko had been right. Those things really were everywhere. Sora got two in a row.

She stared at the second one for a while, turning it over in her hand. Then she glanced at me.

I had a pretty good idea who she was thinking about. I shrugged.

"Save one for him," I said, keeping my voice down. "He'll probably lose it by Tuesday and swear he never had it. But I know that he'll be happy you thought of him."

Sora went pink all the way to her ears.

"O-Oh! N-No!! I swear that I wasn't—" She waved her hands, but the warm smile on my face spoke more than a thousand words.

"Thank you," she then whispered, smiling at the little bat.

"It's a keychain, Sora. And you're my friend." I said.

She shook her head. "It's not just a keychain."

I was about to make some smart remark, but the way she was looking at it made me think better of it. "Yeah, alright. I guess it isn't."

She'd paid for all of them herself, too. I'd already bought her the clothes, and when I offered to cover the cost of the machines, she refused. Apparently, buying tiny Lilibats was something she wanted to do with her own money.

She then clipped the skateboard bat to her bag and the chef to her coat, while one of the scarf Lilibats went straight into her inner pocket, safely out of sight.

Then she held the other one out to me.

"For you." She said, with a gentle voice.

With a smile, I took it and clipped it beside the little skull already hanging from my bag.

They looked ridiculous together. A skull and a Lilibat wearing a tiny red scarf.

I kept looking at them anyway and, for some reason, I felt a little better.

By the time we left the shop, the three of us were carrying enough bags to qualify as a small traveling circus.

The evening air had grown colder, and the streets were full of lights.

A few cherry petals had drifted onto the pavement, sticking to the soles of our boots.

Somewhere on the corner, a busker was playing a slow melody on an acoustic guitar.

Hoshiko hummed along. Badly. Very badly. But it was enjoyable, because it was her.

Her arms were hooked through ours again, forcing us to walk in a ridiculous little line.

Suddenly, her stomach growled, very loudly.

She looked down, and then at me.

"Well... My stomach is eating itself." She said.

Sora and I laughed.

"Oh, come on! I haven't eaten since that chocolate sandwich at six! I've been surviving on pure willpower!" She exclaimed.

"Okay. Guess that it's pizza time." I grinned.

Hoshiko's head snapped toward me. "That pizzeria?"

"Yes," I replied.

"The one where we went with Shin, right?!" Her eyes started sparkling.

"Exactly."

Hoshiko clutched my arm. "BABY WOLF, I LOVE YOU!"

"Yeah, yeah—"

"I LOVE YOU WITH MY WHOLE HEART!" She was literally both hugging and strangling me now.

"I know." I sighed.

"I'M GOING TO CRY IN PIZZA MARGHERITA!" 

"Please don't..."

Sora was laughing again.

And then, we turned onto the next street, and the smell reached us before the restaurant came into view.

Warm bread, tomato sauce, freshly baked crust... everything that would make you hungry even if you're not.

A narrow red awning hung above the entrance, with a faded painting of a smiling chef holding a pizza the size of a wagon wheel.

Hoshiko made a sound somewhere between a gasp and a prayer.

Then Sora suddenly stopped, and her smile disappeared.

"Oh, no..." 

I turned. "What?"

She patted her bag.

Then checked the other one.

"My folder..."

Hoshiko and I exchanged a look.

Sora stared at us. "I left my folder at the studio. I didn't pick it up when we left..."

Ah. There it was.

For a moment, she looked genuinely horrified. I could practically see the festival schedule flashing before her eyes.

Well... the lists, the deadlines, the paperwork...

Her hand tightened around the strap of her shopping bag.

Hoshiko said nothing. Neither did I. We just watched her think.

Sora looked down at the bags in her hands, at the little Lilibat hanging from her coat, and then touched the black velvet ribbon she'd put in her hair.

Her fingers loosened, she took a breath, and smiled.

"...It's fine."

I raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

She looked at me. "It's sleeping."

Hoshiko nodded solemnly.

"That's right, Lady Folder."

Sora gave a small laugh. "Guess that it can wait until morning..." 

"ABSOLUTELY!" 

Then Sora laughed properly.

A bright, unrestrained laugh that made a passing man turn his head and smile before continuing on his way.

I couldn't help smiling too.

"Come on," I said. "Before the pizza gets cold."

"Don't worry, Lady Folder, you now have an excuse to come to the studio tomorrow," Hoshiko said.

"Guess so..." Sora sighed, smiling.

Then I pushed open the pizzeria door.

A little bell chimed above us, and warm air rushed out, carrying the smell of oregano, melted cheese, and fresh bread.

The place was still the same narrow room with a wood-fired oven at the back and a man at the counter who threw dough like it had insulted his family personally.

Hoshiko immediately marched inside with both arms spread wide.

"WE HAVE ARRIVED!"

Of course she did.

Sora followed, cheeks flushed, carrying her shopping bags with the velvet ribbon still sitting neatly in her hair.

And I brought up the rear, my little red-scarf bat swinging against the skull on my bag.

Jeez.

What a night...

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Author's Note: 4/5 before the drama and the future end :D